I come from the kind of family where work is work; my parents always taught me that it's better to be doing something than sitting around doing nothing.
I wouldn't describe that 'position' as 'parasitic.' I'd describe that experience as 'edifying.' I don't merely write from a critical intellectual distance. I actually live around here.
There's probably no experience more alienating than fame, other than a terminal illness, where you actually find yourself in a situation that nobody around you can relate to.
I think many years ago I got on a bus in L.A. and drove around to see the stars' homes, but that's the extent of my direct experience in Hollywood.
When our minds as people normally starts to wrap around things, we start to attach all these ideas to it that really aren't that necessary to the core of it, if you just experience it and kind of go through it.
Being a biological mother just isn't part of my experience this time around. However, I am a mother who continues to give birth to ideas and ways of experiencing life that challenge the norm.
While I didn't have a father around, I did have - and what I want my children to both experience - the ability to explore, experiment and enjoy life as a kid.
I've always enjoyed traveling and having experience with different cultures and different people. But it's also a wonderful thing to be able to benefit and enable research, not only in our country but around the world.
In my experience sometimes the darker the material that you're doing, the more necessary it is to have some sort of levity around. I've worked on more lighthearted pieces that have been more brutal and tougher to make.
'The Waltons' was profoundly important after years of wandering around. I was 44 and cut off from family and friends. It nurtured me back to a sense of family and who I am. It was a transforming experience.
In my experience, it's all wonderful with girls until about 16. Around that time, boys kind of calm down and start focusing their testosterone. Girls get a little challenging, especially for fathers.
If you sit in a position where decisions that you take would have a serious effect on people, you can't ignore a lot of experience around the world which says this drug has these negative effects.
I am not a person who can really sit around and think about regrets because with every bad experience that you have, there is weirdly something good that comes from it.
A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge, and each marked off by some intense experience.
To address our current food system problems, I propose a series of local, regional, national and global conversations - starting around the dinner table - to rethink the food we produce, buy and eat.
I wear a pedometer, aiming for five miles a day - don't be too impressed; that includes walking around my house and food shopping.
I'm aware there are certain products that are being advertised - food products - with 'no chemicals whatsoever.' Well, that would be pretty hard to arrange, since everything around us is made up of atoms and molecules - chemicals - including ourselve...
We hear all around us to love ourselves, and one of the ways we can do that is to eat food that serves our body, but also for us to love the food we're eating.
Food might be more immediately important than history but if you don't understand what's been done to you - by your own people and the so-called 'they' - you can never get around it.
In Italy, food is an expression of love. It is how you show those around you that you care for them. Having a love for food means you also have a love for those you are preparing it for and for yourself.
I like to cook Puerto Rican food. That's what I grew up on: rice, beans, meat, some Italian-American food. I know my way around the kitchen.
